Many printed circuit boards are designed to engage a longitudinal connector along all or part of one of the edges of the circuit board. For example, in the field of computer equipment, it is common to mount a longitudinal connector on the face of a main board (the "motherboard"), and to engage the edge of a secondary board (a "daughterboard") with the connector on the motherboard. Typically, daughterboards are oriented at right angles with the plane of the motherboard.
It sometimes happens that the connection between a daughterboard and motherboard is compromised because of vibration or shock. For example, vibration and shock usually occur during the transport of a computer. Occasionally, the vibration and shock occurring during transport will cause a daughterboard to be shaken loose from its connector.
Although numerous circuit board retention techniques have been devised to address the shock and vibration problem, the prior art techniques have drawbacks associated with them: Primarily, they require the addition of complicated hardware (such as levers, hinges, screws or metal pins) either to the connector or to the board, or both. The addition of this kind of hardware adds undesirable cost and weight to the final assembly.
It is an object of the invention to provide an improved technique for retaining the edge of a circuit board inside a longitudinal connector.
It is an additional object of the invention to do so in a manner that eliminates the need for expensive and heavy additional hardware.